Here's How Many Athletes Are Competing in the 2018 Winter Olympics

A selfie taken by smiling North and South Korean skaters and posted on Instagram illustrates yet another moment of reconciliation between the rivals, whose decades-long animosities could easily erupt again after the Pyeongchang Olympics. (My sport, Typing Slowly While Eating Room-Temperature Lo Mein, is not yet included in the Games.) This year, most everyone-nearly three thousand athletes, from ninety countries-appeared genuinely thrilled to be in Pyeongchang, loopy on outsize pomp, and calculated risk.

The two Koreas also have opposing views on the concept of unification.

At the Olympic Stadium's VIP box, Kim Yo Jong and North Korea's nominal head of state, Kim Yong Nam, took their place among dignitaries from around the world, including U.S. Vice President Mike Pence who sat just a few feet (less than a meter) away and seemed to make an effort not to acknowledge them.

"I said something like 'Hey, Ju Sik hyeong, let's take a photo together!' " Kam said after training Tuesday. I started to doze off at one point, but then there was this strange mash-up of South Korean rappers performing "Uptown Funk" while cheerleaders sang with orders to "Unify the motherland!"

Her arrival on Kim Jong Un's private jet with a coterie of 22 officials was broadcast live on South Korean television.

Japan lost control of the peninsula in 1945, when it was defeated at the end of World War II. North Korean medallists often ignored South Korean competitors who extended their hands for handshakes at podiums.

"There is no daylight between the United States, the Republic of Korea and Japan on the need to continue to isolate North Korea economically and diplomatically until they abandon their nuclear and ballistic missile program", Pence told reporters aboard a flight back to the U.S.

Since the Cold War, though, the countries have sometimes used sports as a way to thaw relations.

She verbally conveyed Kim's invitation to Moon "to visit the North at his most convenient time", he added.

The art troupe called Samjiyon Orchestra, which consists of 140 orchestra members, singers and dancers, performed at the Haeoreum Hall of the National Theater of Korea in downtown Seoul. But when the dignitaries visit, the coach and her team are merely unification wallpaper.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has invited the South's President Moon Jae-in for a summit in Pyongyang, Seoul said today.

The Korean team has sparked intense interest, particularly after 12 North Korean players joined the southern team. No wonder some conservatives in the South worry that the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics may possibly be transformed into the "Pyongyang Winter Olympics".

Seohyun, a member of South Korean pop group Girls' Generation, hugs a North Korean singer during the Samjiyon Orchestra's performance in Seoul on Feb. 11, 2018. It will be the first such joint march since 2007. But the Koreans didn't score, despite spending 12 minutes of the game on the power play.

Critics say it's unclear whether revived dialogue between the Koreas could lead to immediate breakthrough on the nuclear stalemate when it seems unlikely that the North would be willing to give up its nukes under any deal.

"I remember trying to tell her to employ that charm that she has on the ice", he said. And women's ice hockey players from both Koreas will compete as one team.

Moon and the two North Korean delegates cheerfully clapped and waved as the athletes from the two Koreas jointly marched during the ceremony holding a blue-and-white flag symbolizing a unified Korean Peninsula. Their governments ban ordinary citizens from exchanging phone calls, letters and emails, so they won't communicate unless they encounter each other in international competitions. The South Korean media certainly liked the latest one showing Kam and Kim flashing smiles and making peace signs. The figure skater could help put it over the top.